"It actually works quite well," sums up farmer Nicole Herrmann. The Herrmann family manages their alp for a particularly long period of time. For about 100 days, the whole family – parents, three children, and Nicole Herrmann's parents – live on the Wildeggli-Alp above Saanenmöser. However, the summer holidays do not last from June to mid-September. What do five-year-old Philipp, eight-year-old Alessia from the second grade and eleven-year-old Lukas from the fourth grade do?

No classes, but no holidays
"For June, we use the Alp dispensation," Nicole Herrmann reports. This is a request to exempt the respective pupil from lessons for up to three weeks to spend the time on the alp with the family, explains Martin Pfanner, school inspector of the Obersimmental-Saanenland administrative district. And how do the children catch up on the material? "The schools support the farming families as best they can by having the teachers prepare and provide the teaching material," explains Pfanner.

Alp Schooling in autumn
Alp dispensation allows for 15 days off at the end of the school year, but then the season is, of course, not yet over. What happens to Lukas, Alessia and Philipp when the new school year starts in August, but the family is still busy making cheese on the alp for four to five weeks?

"If a family needs more than the three permitted weeks of Alp dispensation, they must obtain a permit for private lessons from the school inspectorate," says Martin Pfanner. According to the Elementary School Act, parents are responsible for schooling during this time. "As a rule, teachers or students from teacher training universities are hired for these months and financed by the respective families."

According to school inspector Pfanner, these teachers plan and organise the lessons. They visit at regular intervals, check the completed assignments and sometimes also teach the children. Pfanner: "After the autumn holidays, the children return to their regular classes.

"Alp dispensations and the Alp schooling work very well in practice," says Pfanner happily. "The families concerned handle the issue very responsibly." Many families would therefore also opt for mixed forms after careful consideration.

It has to be right for the family
Seven-year-old Tanja Müllener, for example, loves going to school. Therefore, her parents Regula and Hansueli, only use the Alp dispensation for single days. They check individually with the teacher which days are suitable for an absence and when Tanja should be in class. The Mülleners were able to make an arrangement with a couple who are friends that their daughter can stay there at any time. In return, they look after their friends’ cows. Neighbourly help in its most effective form.

Other children like 15-year-old Andri Michel prefer Alpine farming to school by far. The rather short Alp season of a good eight weeks on the Turnels Alp is relatively well covered by the six-week summer holidays. Nevertheless, he would have to take about two weeks off, but he doesn't even do that out of a sense of duty: he lives with his grandparents in the valley and regularly attends classes at the beginning of the school year.

Teachers and headmasters usually advise presence in class at the beginning of a new school year. Andri, in turn, does not mind skipping the actually nice excursions and events at the end of the school year favouring the Alp. His mother, Ursi Michel, laughs: "Andri is a full-blooded farmer boy. He says himself, 'Every day on the alp is like a birthday!'"

Preserving a special way of life
Alp dispensations and Alp schooling thus seem to be well-functioning, socially firmly established practices. However, a statistic from the municipality of Saanen shows that Alp dispensations have steadily decreased since 2012. The reasons could be that there are fewer and fewer farming families who go to the alp to make cheese.

All parties involved consider it all the more important that this way of life remains possible and the tradition is preserved. The Cantonal School Inspectorate and the headmasters and teachers of the schools in the Saanenland support the families with individual advice and materials so that the pupils do not suffer any disadvantages.

Based on AvS/Sonja Wolf